Three Things Jose Mourinho Must Do To Avoid The ‘Third Season Syndrome’

Jose Mourinho

Manchester United just two games into the new season to create a feeling of chaos and crisis. Things should not be overstated, this is not crisis. Manchester United lost a football match. Things like that happen.

The manner in which the 3-2 loss to Brighton happened could be something people will want to talk about. That makes sense, as the team played horrendous match at the Amex Stadium and the mistakes like those on Sunday afternoon should not be repeated. However, now everyone is talking about Jose Mourinho. His ‘second season syndrome’ where he delivers a league title did not continue, as Man United were 19 points away from the eventual winners.

Now the ‘third season syndrome’ is being mentioned – that is when Jose Mourinho usually leaves the club/gets the sack. It happened twice at Chelsea alone, while he also worked for just three years at Inter and Real Madrid (Inter being a clear exception). Here are the things the manager should do if he wants to Manchester United manager by the time the next campaign starts.

Offer Positivity During Crisis

Jose Mourinho is not known as much of positive guy, at least in his public behavior – what happens in the dressing room is behind closed doors (Unless we talk about Manchester City, pun intended). What Mourinho says in press conferences is often meant to provoke a reaction from his players, but constant negativity is not that good.

Not everything can be sparked by a conflict. After all, conflicts leave their marks for longer periods and can harm the team long-term. All of that can create a strain in the communication and wear the team down. Mourinho needs more positivity, being less reactive at everything that could be interpreted as negative against his team. He did, in the end, start the season with a press conference moaning about Man United starting the season on Friday night, even though there were still three and a half weeks to the match.

Work Harder At The Training Ground

Manchester United look like an incredibly undertrained team right now. During pre-season we could also see that in some regards, but that is what usually happen during pre-season. Against Brighton, the team looked like a group of individual working out the way they will play once the match starts.

That tells a lot. Manchester United do not seem to have any structure, any system or idea of what they need to do on the pitch. Mourinho needs to work harder at the training ground, giving his team clearer instructions and finding solutions to the problems the team had in the past two seasons, as well.

Improve Individuals

The only player you could truly mention and say has improved drastically under Mourinho’s guidance is Jesse Lingard. Most of the team looks far from the players they can be. That includes Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku – despite his scoring record – and even Alexis Sanchez. When you take a glance at the team that Man United have, they should not be underperforming this much. And we could say they even underperformed for a nice part of the past season. Jose Mourinho needs to go back to basics and improve the players he has at disposal.

3 Comments on Three Things Jose Mourinho Must Do To Avoid The ‘Third Season Syndrome’

  1. yeeeesss!, l thought i was the only one seeing this- yes,man utd players are not optimally trained under the current coaching set up. This is clearly evident each time Utd is playing a high pressing team. Utd players lacks hunger, raw speed, proactive agility, motivation, etc, required to win games. This team is in trouble. Something has to change in this club. Utd fans have suffered enough!. Just have a lot at how the this mourinho’s team was over-ran by 3 newly promoted clubs from the championship last season.

  2. Barely the new season just started, and we have already lost to Brighton. This is shocking. I still can’t believe that it happened.

  3. Three Things Jose Mourinho Must Do To Avoid The ‘Third Season Syndrome. This is assuming he wants to do anything or is capable of doing anything. History is repeating itself at United and they need to get rid of him now while the season is young mid way through is no good and could be too late for European entry.

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